Of Insanity and Genius
by Melkor44
Summary: set in the original Mystery Dungeon games, after returning to Pokemon Square and before going to fight Rayquaza; Whiscash tells the hero a story about a man whose strength was unrivaled, and of the brother he barely knew. He was a cruel man, an unforgiving man, to whom strength was the law and defeat was unthinkable. It's the story of the hero, in his violently human past.


**I decided to go through the Pokemon archive and got inspired. Let's see where this goes.**

* * *

_Come then, young one. You are the soul of a human, put into the body of a Pokemon, yes? Let me tell you this tale. I doubt you will know of whom it speaks, given that your memories are gone, but perhaps it might help you understand more of who you are, and why you are here. __It is a story nearly lost to time, only passed down to me from generation to generation. My forefathers remember when a man ruled a mountain, more powerful than any who lived before or since and yet who was pitied by all who knew him...for he had nothing in the world but his power._

* * *

From the moment he was self-conscious, he knew what his destiny was. From the day of his birth, his parents understood just what he would become.

Red eyes, near-white skin, and hair that was darker than black. He was an incarnation of battle...he was a master of war. He was calm and in control. That was a good thing, a strong thing. Kanto was wracked by battles in those days, as the world at war with itself. He needed to be strong. He was named Red for his eyes, for the blood that soaked the land, for the glimmering sunrise.

His father was reported dead only months after his birth, but for years the boy held out hope.

By the time he was seven, the war had ended and the people were left poor. Nobody had anything except their Pokemon partners, and whatever they could scrounge out...but slowly, with great effort, the people of Kanto rebuilt their shining cities, their thriving society. Kanto, technologically the richest of the regions of the world, soared to great heights.

Behind that, though, was an ominous shadow. A group named Team Rocket was behind much of the region's economic boom, hiring anyone and everyone who was willing to apply. It started innocently, providing relief efforts to the various war-torn cities of Kanto. Their leader was a war veteran whose family had died, supposedly...but eventually, providing relief turned into an expectation of repayment, with interest. To pay him back completely, more people were coerced into joining Team Rocket. Activities banned by the Pokemon League, such as the buying and selling of Pokemon, began to be practiced. Experiments were made. Villainy flourished where there once had been good. Those few good souls who remained stayed out of fear; they remembered what the war had been like. They remembered what it meant to be homeless, penniless, starving and dehydrated.

Still, Giovanni, wondered what might have become of his son if the child had lived. He fell in love again, and had another son...though the mother died soon after. This one had burning red hair, and eyes of steel; if his first child had been calm, then this boy was rage personified. He was named Silver for the fact that he was second, for his eyes, and in the knowledge that he would need to become far stronger than even the mountain which shared his name. It was painfully clear to the boy that his father did not _love_ him. His father was driven by his work, and everything was now no more than an asset to the man. He wondered what it might have been like to have a brother or sister to share the pain of having nobody with him.

* * *

Red grew. Slowly, surely, he knew that he would become strong enough to make sure that nothing like the war that claimed his father's life could ever happen again. He ran with the Arcanine packs, he wrestled with Poliwrath. He spent more days outside than in, more time with Pokemon than people...but the children still accepted him. He was the strongest. He was their leader, even if Blue Oak refused to admit it. His half-siblings, the twins named Fire and Leaf, were often shunned by him. Their father may have been his mother's husband, but that man was not _his_ father.

That, however, was no reason for him to exclude them completely. Adults would be adults; the children were his family, if only by half. He was the one who needed to take care of them...so he showed them everything he knew. Rarely did he speak, learning by listening rather than talking. Finally, however, it was time for him to go. It was his sixteenth birthday. He was now, legally, able to leave home on a journey with a starting Pokemon. With a Pikachu who came to him when called, with a Charmander from the esteemed Professor Oak, he set out to take on the world that had swallowed up countless lives during his childhood. The younger Blue raced ahead of him, forcing Red to play catch-up, having broken the rules established by the Pokemon League...but the matter was laid to rest because he was an Oak, with only his grandfather left for him.

Red lost none of his battles. Blue only lost to Red. Still, a certain bond developed between them. Red respected Blue's tenacity, and Blue acknowledged Red's ability.

Slowly, as with all things that he dealt with, Red became warped. His warmth to the people around him died. He crushed those who stood in his way. His kindness was reserved for his Pokemon, and only his Pokemon. He ignored the calls from his mother, his step-father, his siblings. He ignored Blue's growing disbelief that someone could interact with the world and yet remain so callous to it.

It wasn't truly Blue's fault, he knew. The boy had lost both of his parents. His sister Daisy was old enough to remember them, but Blue only had stories.

Red didn't care. All that mattered to him was destroying the world, unless he would be destroyed by it. Subjugation, risking annihilation.

There was no other way.

...

Silver grew. He learned quickly, discovered how to do things that would help him. He could fight, he could pick locks, he could go unseen and unheard. His command over his Pokemon was from pure strength of will, primal domination. They feared him. They worked to please him. Just as he feared, and hoped to please, his father.

Unfortunately, neither of them ever would be.

He learned everything he could from the older Rockets who dared to be seen associating with him. They showed him all the things he knew, and silently prayed that the boy would either take his father's place and end Giovanni's reign of terror, or promote them for their willingness to help him. They never knew that, as soon as he felt they had outlived their usefulness to him, he asked his father to explicitly send those men and women on suicide missions.

Silver lost none of his battles, because he made sure that those battles didn't need to be fought in the first place. Fighting was not inevitable, especially if there was no one who could challenge him.

* * *

Red had risen through the ranks of trainers like none other before him, even the ever-ahead Blue. Each Gym Leader was broken with ease, where others struggled or completely gave up; no path was too dangerous, no battle too challenging, no Pokemon too strong. One by one, he assembled his team. It was not an unbeatable combination, not by any means, but Red could dance to the tune of battle and always emerge victorious.

It was in the halls of the Rocket Hideout, beneath the Game Corner in Celadon, that the brothers passed one another for the first time. Something told Red that he would see that boy again, and Silver knew inherently that the elder teen was not to be aggravated. _"If you ever see a boy, a man, with red eyes..." _his father's words came back to him then. _"You must never fight him. He will have no mercy."_

The radio by his side was active, once the elevator came to life. "There is a boy with red eyes. He's coming to see you."

When the doors opened, Giovanni beheld his eldest son for the first time in seventeen years. They could not be friends, though; they were enemies, now, by time and circumstance. But still...he could not bear to break his son. He lost, in a moment of fatherly hesitation.

The question was there, in Red's eyes. He knew that it should have been a much more difficult fight. The leader of a crime ring, the most devastating one of all given the recent financial troubles of the world, should have world-class Pokemon with which to challenge him.

"You will get the challenge you seek, if you can prove yourself worthy. This was a test of your abilities."

Silver, who had watched the battle from the hidden camera, frowned; his father...chose to be weak.

Weakness could not be tolerated.

He would break Rocket from within, that the red-eyed boy could shatter it from without.

He refused to be a coward's son.

* * *

It was another three and a half years before they met once more. Team Rocket's destruction had been assured the second time, its uprising quelled by a boy and two girls...as well as Silver himself, though this time from the outside. Gold, Kris, and Lyra...they were strong. Stronger than almost anyone he knew, but there were two things that he knew for certain.

They were not stronger than him, and they were not stronger than the man atop Mount Silver.

The four of them had ventured there, after being requested to do so by Professor Oak. All of Silver's life experience, all of his training, had needed to be used in order to survive, let alone progress through the mountain's caverns. When they had reached the summit, the legends of the man who waited for one strong enough to challenge him were proved true.

It was the boy who had defeated his father not once, not twice, but three times. It was the man who had become the Champion of the Kanto region. He had driven Team Rocket from his homeland, where the Johto Four (Lyra had come up with that name for their group) had finished them off for good.

Ethan, cocksure and prideful, had challenged him first...and had been mercilessly beaten down. Lyra had fared better, but still could not match his might. Kris, perhaps, stood the best chance out of the three of them; she was the elder, she was stronger as a trainer.

She, too, was defeated with ease.

"...come then, brother. Join your allies."

"You know?"

"Our father told me everything, after the final time I beat him. I won't bother wasting my pity or mercy on you, like he did to me. You don't want it. You refuse to need it. Prove that the warrior's blood runs through us both. Give me the greatest challenge you can."

There was a devilish smile there, on his elder brother's face. They both knew that Red would not lose, but pride forced him to stand against his slated fate and at least _attempt_ to fight it.

* * *

His Weavile was crushed.

His Magneton was struck down.

His Gengar was obliterated.

His Crobat nearly lasted, but the natural blizzard took its toll.

His Alakazam stood tall, but was made to bow in defeat.

His Feraligatr, most painfully, was barely left alive. Burned, paralyzed, poisoned, unconscious; it was almost too much to bear.

"You are a monster."

"And you were raised by one. You were driven to become the best, but you couldn't...and you still can't. When you were a child, he occupied himself with thoughts of me. When I traveled, I proved that I could not be bested. In your turns, from weakest to strongest, I broke you and your friends. You were born second, and you'll always finish second, because I was born first and I will always finish first. This world is cruel, brother. It robbed me of my father. It robbed me of the chance to have a normal family. It robbed me of the chance to have you as a brother of full blood, and not only half. Each of us is alone, save for those who choose to be our partners. I am the strongest. I was born strongest."_  
_

Silver could only glare.

"You should leave before the mountain tries to have its way with you again. It doesn't exactly like people, I've heard...much like myself. And if you ever want to be crushed again..." He left the words hanging, and began a roaring laugh as the four teens left.

"YOU KNOW WHERE TO FIND ME!"

* * *

"He's still up there, you know. Your uncle is. He refuses to come down. He refuses to be beaten, even by death itself...but you asked for the story of my life, child, and so you've gotten it."

The child had the red hair of her father, and the red eyes of her uncle. Her mother was revealed in the shape of her face, but in every other aspect she was the daughter of Silver.

"That's not how a story is supposed to go at all! He became the bad guy! Why wasn't he beaten?"

"Because sometimes, someone's just too strong. He took on your mother and I, and Gold and Lyra, in a row. If we'd all fought him at once, the result would have been the same. Your uncle is the strongest trainer to have ever lived. Maybe, one day, you can live up to his legacy and go show him that you're strong, too."

* * *

_They had been brothers. They had been enemies. They had been completely separated by all aspects of their lives. While Silver had begun crudely, and developed into a kindhearted person, Red had devolved from wild to wilder. Neither could be stopped, save by the other. They could not be united, except in the hatred of their father._

_Silver died many, many years later, survived by his three children and eight collective grandchildren._

_Some sages will say that a warrior still lives at the peak of Mount Silver who was born centuries ago, when war destroyed the world's regions and peace was slow to follow. As the human race died out, and Pokemon civilization flourished, The mountain was heralded as sacred, for that was where the Strongest Six and their human had gone to when no challenge was left for them in the human world. It is physically impossible, of course, because humans could only live for slightly over a century before dying...but it is a popular tale among the children, as well as a cautionary tale to all: beware the drive to compete for power. You can take it, yes, more than anything you might have dreamed of...but beware of what you will lose in the process. What does it matter if you gain the strength to defy gods and demons, if you lose all the things that keep you tied to the world?_

_Perhaps...just perhaps...you are that man? This may be your chance to make up for the things you missed in your life. Make everything count, young...what did you say your name was? Red? Hmm. How interesting. Please come back again, if you would like me to tell you another story or if you would like to listen to this one again._


End file.
